Google Search Appliance now can index billions of documents

A revamped software architecture for the Google Search Appliance (GSA) and a new high-end model of this enterprise search device lift its indexing capacity to billions of documents and make it easier to scale it up.

Version 6.0 of the GSA's software introduces a more flexible architecture that makes it easier to link the devices to increase the number of documents indexed.

Meanwhile, Google is introducing a new model, the GB-9009, which can index up to 30 million documents out of the box. Its minimum capacity is 15 million documents.

Google sells the Search Appliance as a hardware box loaded with enterprise search software designed to let companies index and retrieve the data in their corporate systems, such as applications, document management tools, databases, Web servers and files. The software is based on the technology the company uses in its Web search engines, like Google.com.

In an enterprise search market historically dominated by sophisticated products that are costly and difficult to implement and use, Google has tried to attract underserved customers with an aggressively priced, low- to mid-range product designed to be simple to install, maintain and use.

However, with this new architecture and capacity to scale up to billions of indexed documents, the Search Appliance seems to make its most serious attempt yet at competing for customers that need industrial-strength enterprise search.

The GB-9009 replaces the GB-8008, which, in order to scale to 30 million documents, Google had to hard-wire and preconfigure on 12 server nodes, said Nitin Mangtani, senior product manager of enterprise search at Google.

The GB-9009 is built on Dell's PowerEdge R710 platform, running Intel's Xeon 5500 Series processors. Unlike the other single-box Search Appliance models, the GB-9009 has two units: one for processing and one for storage.

In addition, Google is phasing out the entry-level GB-1001, which topped out at 3 million documents but could be stacked in configurations of either five or eight units, providing capacity for up to 10 million or 30 million documents, respectively. Previously, the GB-7007, which goes from 500,000 to 10 million documents, couldn't be stacked, but with the new 6.0 software, now it can, thus eliminating the need for the GB-1001.

Google will continue to support the 1001 and 8008 models.

While the GB-1001, GB-7007 and the GB-9009 run the new 6.0 software, the 8008 can't, so Google will work with 8008 customers so that they can migrate to the new architecture if they want to.

Although the GB-8008 isn't compatible with the 6.0 software, it's very simple to migrate its index and export its configuration to the GB-9009, Mangtani said.

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